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Beginners FAQ on sausage making, meat curing etc may often be found at the head of each relevant section, but here is the place to ask experienced users for advice if you are still stuck or need more information...we're here to help!

I’ve been doing the normal BBQ thing all my life and that got a bit boring so I started curing meats, making salami and other meats. Or at least attempting to I must say. All has not gone well it that department. I’ve also started making fresh sausage. Boy I didn’t know what I was missing. Many books have been written on the subjects and a whole bunch of videos made. I have have a few of the books and have watched lots of videos. The videos seem all over the place method wise. One that I found intriguing was done by River Cottage. He doesn’t seem to use curing salts, nitrites. Not sure about that though.

My next project is to make some salami safely. The road blocks I’m running into is that it appears I have to measure the PH. That’s an expensive piece of equipment. I’ve already made a lot of bacon from belly’s and boneless butts. They turned out pretty good but all require refrigeration at some point.

Second project is to make bacon the old traditional way, safely. I want to be able to store it without refrigeration.

Any help with my salami type meats and bacon would be greatly appreciated.

Whilst monitoring pH is not essential, it is desirable and good practice. You can use pH strips which are cheap, or a cheap pH meter and a meat 'slurry'.

To store bacon without refrigeration it would need to be made safe by reducing the Water Activity to a level where bacteria would not be able to do their nasty work. Lots of salt would help. During the process normal food hygiene rules would need to apply.

Unless they have changed, some of River Cottage's practices would not be promoted here.

I tried the PH strips there not very accurate or my eyes aren't Looks like the Milwaukee 102 PH meter is the one, $170.00, not cheap but will do the job. Hope I don’t have to make a slurry with this one that’s to much work as I have to many different meats to check. I’d better double check that again.

Safety is the biggest issue with me because of health issues and everything must be safe. Lots of videos like River Cottages and many survivalist videos don’t use nitrites and still don’t. They are however informative in techniques and spices used to make products. Love the wine part.

I have a Milwaukee, it's a good meter. You don't need the (expensive) penetration probe (although I have it). It's not a chore mixing some spare sausage with water and testing it using the standard probe.

I talked to a guy at Milwaukee and he said the standard probe, as you stated, could be used BUT it would be difficult to clean and tends to clog. Would you say it’s difficult to clean and I’m not sure about clogging as I don’t know what the probe end looks like? Odin

I use isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) to clean grease from a standard glass probe followed by deionized water. The alcohol can be found at pharmacies. If you get a meter and probe, I recommend some buffer solutions to test the electrode and calibrate it. I don't recommend using slurries, and certainly not dilute ones, to check pH as they can introduce a shift in measured pH.